The road to the electric vehicle future has been getting a lot bumpier of late, with inventories rising, major automakers retrenching, and a January cold snap reminding folks that batteries and frigid temperatures don't mix.
But those are all things that can be worked out through market forces and innovation. A thornier problem has been the slow pace of infrastructure installation – the charging stations – necessary to support those new electric cars. The federal government has billions of dollars allocated to push charging station construction across the country. But, being that government is in charge, those dollars come with a bewildering array of strings, and social engineering, attached.
As Reason's Joe Lancaster writes about one part of the federal charging apparatus – the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program – tens of millions of tax dollars are going to build chargers in some very out-of-the-way places. All in the name of social justice:
“The CFI Program advances President Biden's Justice40 Initiative, which set a goal that 40% of the overall benefits of federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution,” bragged the FHWA press release. “More than 70% of the CFI funding announced today will support project sites in disadvantaged communities.”
As an example, it notes “$1.4 million to the Chilkoot Indian Association, an Alaska Native Tribe, to build an EV charging station in Haines, a rural and disadvantaged community where there are no publicly available EV charging stations.”
Haines is in Haines Borough, Alaska, which has a population of just over 2,000 people.
Ambitious? Yes. If one includes hybrids, there were almost 2,500 EVS registered statewide as of 2022. There were more than 457,000 gas vehicles registered in the state at that time, and more than 30,000 diesels.
And just for more context: there were more than 38,000 snowmobiles registered in Alaska in 2022.
Doesn't exactly seem like a wise use of federal funds. But when checking boxes takes priority over actually building infrastructure that most people can use? Checking boxes tends to win.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
